A rare winter storm charging through Texas and the northern Gulf Coast on Tuesday has closed highways and airports and prompted the first blizzard warning for southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana.

A rare, historic snowfall blanketed parts of the southern U.S. on Tuesday, allowing residents to play in the rather unusual weather. Families went snow tubing in Houston. People made snowballs and snow angels. People were even seen skiing on Bourbon Street.

By noon, the National Weather Service had reported about 4 inches of snow in New Orleans. The storm prompted the first ever blizzard warnings for several coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border, and snow plows were at the ready in the Florida Panhandle, according to the Associated Press.

The storm that struck New Orleans this week left the Gulf Coast city under twice as much snow as Anchorage, Alaska has received in nearly two months. "New Orleans, we'd like our snow back," the NWS Anchorage office said.

Bitter Arctic air plunged more than half the United States into a deep freeze Tuesday, including New Orleans, where the heaviest snow in decades brought dangerous conditions to the famously